Fred Baron

Fred Baron recuperating in a Swedish hospital (1945) after Liberation from Bergen-Belsen.

Fred Baron was born in Vienna in 1924. He was 15 when the German’s annexed (Anschluss) Austria in 1938. Fred’s father died and his sister managed to be sent to England as part of the Kindertransport in 1939. He and his mother sought shelter and lived in hiding for a time. In 1941 they managed to escape to Hungary. Fred was arrested in Hungary and imprisoned for a time while his mother was sent to an interment camp. In June 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz.

After time in various other labor camps, he was liberated by the British Army at Bergen-Belsen, in terrible health he was taken to Sweden for medical care in Sweden. At the hospital he met his future wife Judith, who was also a Holocaust survivor, and was reunited with his sister. He resettled in Minnesota in 1947, attracted to the large Swedish population.

Fred Baron passed away at the age of 91 on May 23, 2014

Audio/Visual

Fred Baron's testimony is available at the University of Minnesota through the Visual History Archive developed by the USC Shoah Foundation institute for Visual History and Education (Also known as the Shoah Project). Visit theVisual History Archive websitefor more information.

Oral History Interview January 13, 1984 (Audio)Fred Baron was interviewed by Rhoda Lewin as part of a Holocaust oral history project sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, Anti-Defamation League of Minnesota and the Dakotas. The project was later published as Witnesses to the Holocaust: An Oral History by Twayne Publishers in 1990. The complete audio collection is available at the United StatesHolocaust Memorial Museum(USHMM).